Chapter 4 - THE FRIEND THEY TOOK
I stared at Sofia’s photograph until the screen blurred.
“No.”
Dominic reached for the phone.
I pulled it away.
“No.”
“Elena.”
“They have her because of me.”
“They have her because they need leverage.”
“What difference does that make?”
“A significant one. Leverage stays alive until it stops being useful.”
I hated the calmness in his voice.
“How can you say that?”
“Because panic is exactly what they want from you.”
“I’m not one of your soldiers.”
“No. You’re David Ward’s daughter.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“It means your father stayed rational while men threatened a fifteen-year-old girl he loved more than his own life.”
The words hit hard enough to silence me.
Bianca moved beside me.
“Elena, Dominic isn’t telling you not to be afraid. He’s telling you to use the fear.”
I looked again at Sofia.
We had met in college.
She had slept on my couch through breakups, driven across the state when my appendix ruptured, and spent every October twenty-seventh bringing takeout because she knew I hated being alone on the anniversary.
Now someone had bruised her face because I opened a cardboard box.
The phone buzzed again.
MIDNIGHT. EAST HARBOR TERMINAL 6. COME ALONE.
Dominic read over my shoulder.
“You are absolutely not going alone.”
“They’ll kill her.”
“They will kill both of you if you walk into that terminal without knowing what they want.”
“They want the key.”
“No. They want what the key opens.”
He was right.
I hated that too.
“We go to Ashwood first.”
“It’s probably surrounded.”
“Yes.”
“That doesn’t sound like a plan.”
“It’s not the first time I’ve entered a cemetery unnoticed.”
Bianca gave her brother a look.
“You realize how disturbing that sentence sounds.”
Forty minutes later, I was wearing a black hooded jacket and sitting in the back of a utility van marked with the logo of an electrical company that probably did not exist.
Dominic sat across from me.
“You could stay here.”
“No.”
“If this goes wrong—”
“If this goes wrong and I’m sitting in a van, Sofia still dies.”
He stared at me for several seconds.
Then nodded.
Marco entered Ashwood through a service road behind the maintenance area.
The storm had softened into mist.
From inside the trees, we could see federal vehicles near the main gate.
Dominic was right.
They were waiting.
We moved through the oldest section of the cemetery, using monuments and trees for cover.
The mausoleum stood exactly where I remembered.
Gray stone.
Iron door.
Names carved into the walls.
The north side contained twelve small memorial compartments.
Number 317 was at the bottom.
My hands trembled as I inserted the key.
It turned.
Inside was no ledger.
No weapon.
No stacks of classified files.
Only a cassette tape.
And a photograph.
I picked up the photograph first.
My father.
Me.
We were standing outside a diner.
I was fourteen.
On the back, he had written:
First door opened by blood.
Second by trust.
Third by truth.
Underneath:
Elena, if you are reading this, I failed to keep this from becoming your burden. I am sorry.
My throat closed.
Dominic touched my shoulder.
“Later.”
I nodded.
The cassette had one word written on it.
RAYMOND.
“Do you know a Raymond?” Dominic asked.
I did.
Sofia’s father.
Detective Raymond Alvarez.
The first police officer at my father’s crash.
My stomach dropped.
“Sofia’s dad.”
Dominic’s face hardened.
Raymond Alvarez had died four years earlier of pancreatic cancer.
I remembered him as a big man with warm hands who grilled steaks badly and called me kiddo.
He had attended my father’s funeral.
Held my shoulder while they lowered the coffin.
He had been there from the beginning.
“Why would Dad hide something labeled Raymond?”
“We need a cassette player.”
A beam of light suddenly swept across the mausoleum.
Dominic pulled me behind the stone corner.
Voices approached.
“North side!”
They knew.
Marco whispered through Dominic’s earpiece.
“Three coming from the road. Two from the trees.”
Dominic looked at me.
“Run when I say.”
“I’m tired of running.”
“That makes two of us.”
He waited.
Then stepped out and fired at a floodlight.
Darkness swallowed the cemetery.
We ran.
Shouts erupted.
I clutched the cassette inside my jacket.
A man appeared between two headstones.
Dominic slammed him into the stone before he could raise his weapon.
I kept moving.
Marco’s van emerged from behind the maintenance building.
I reached it first.
Dominic followed seconds later.
We escaped through the rear service road while men shouted behind us.
Inside the van, I finally breathed.
“Where do we find a cassette player at eleven o’clock at night?”
Bianca’s voice came through Dominic’s phone.
“I already found one.”
Thirty minutes later, we sat around the conference table again.
The cassette recorder looked ancient.
Bianca pressed play.
Static filled the room.
Then my father’s voice spoke.
I hadn’t heard it in thirteen years.
My entire body went still.
“Raymond, if you’re hearing this, then I didn’t make it.”
I covered my mouth.
Dad continued.
“You were right. Keene is involved. But he isn’t at the top.”
Dominic leaned closer.
“There are three ledgers. I gave the first key to Rinaldi because the Bureau will watch everyone else. The second key is with you. Do not bring them together unless Elena is already involved. If she is, then God forgive us both.”
The tape clicked.
Dad inhaled.
“The accident will probably be staged on Route Nine. They’ve used that method before. If you respond, photograph everything before federal personnel arrive.”
My eyes filled.
He knew.
He knew exactly how they planned to kill him.
“Tell Elena I loved her. Don’t tell her I was brave. I wasn’t. I was terrified. But some things have to matter more than fear.”
The recording ended.
Nobody moved.
I wiped my face.
“Raymond had the second key.”
Bianca nodded.
“And he photographed the crash.”
I stood.
“Sofia would know where he kept personal things.”
Dominic looked at the clock.
11:18 p.m.
Forty-two minutes until the exchange.
My phone rang.
Sofia’s number.
I answered.
A man spoke.
“You have forty-two minutes.”
“Let me hear her.”
Silence.
Then Sofia screamed.
“Elena, don’t bring them anything!”
A blow sounded.
Her voice disappeared.
The man returned.
“Terminal Six. Alone.”
The call ended.
I looked at Dominic.
“We don’t have time.”
He held my gaze.
“Then we stop trying to solve everything tonight.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means we give them what they think they want.”
He held up the brass key.
“You said that opens the compartment.”
“It already did.”
“So now it’s worthless.”
A slow understanding came over me.
Dominic placed the key in my hand.
“You make the exchange.”
“What are you going to do?”
His expression turned cold.
“Make sure they regret believing you came alone.”
At 11:57 p.m., I stepped into East Harbor Terminal Six carrying my father’s key.
The warehouse lights buzzed overhead.
Sofia sat in a chair forty yards away.
And standing beside her was not Thomas Keene.
It was the last person I expected.
Raymond Alvarez’s former partner.
Captain Michael Trent.
May you like
The man who had spent thirteen years telling me my father’s death was an accident.
And he was smiling.
